Abstract
It has been shown that the inclusion of an isolated class in the classical SIR model for childhood diseases can be responsible for self-sustained oscillations. Hence, the recurrent outbreaks of such diseases can be caused by autonomous, deterministic factors. We extend the model to include a latent class (i.e. individuals who are infected with the disease, but are not yet able to pass the disease to others) and study the resulting dynamics. The existence of Hopf bifurcations is shown for the model, as well as a homoclinic bifurcation for a perturbation to the model. For historical data on scarlet fever in England, our model agrees with the epidemiological data much more closely than the model without the latent class. For other childhood diseases, our model suggests that isolation is unlikely to be a major factor in sustained oscillations.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Anderson RM, May RM (1982) Directly transmitted infectious diseases: control by vaccination. Science 215: 1053–1060
Anderson RM, May RM (1992) Infectious diseases of humans: dynamics and control. Oxford University Press, New York
Bernoulli D (1976) Essai d’une nouvelle analyse de la mortalité causée par la petite vérole. Mem Math Phy Acad Roy Sci Paris (1766). English translation entitled ‘An attempt at a new analysis of the mortality caused by smallpox and of the advantages of inoculation to prevent it’ In: Bradley L (ed) Smallpox Inoculation: An Eighteenth Century Mathematical Controversy, Adult Education Department, Nottingham, 1971, p 21
Diekmann O, Heesterbeek J (2000) Mathematical epidemiology of infectious diseases: Model building, analysis and interpretation. Wiley, Chichester
Doedel E (1981) Auto: a program for the automatic bifurcation analysis of autonomous systems. Congr Numer 30: 265–284
Emerson H (1937) Measles and whooping cough. Am J Public Health 27: 1–153
Feng Z (1994) A mathematical model for the dynamics of childhood diseases under the impact of isolation. Ph.D. thesis, Arizona State University
Feng Z, Thieme HR (1995) Recurrent outbreaks of childhood diseases revisited: the impact of isolation. Math Biosci 128: 93–130
Gao LQ, Mena-Lorca J, Hethcote HW (1995) Four SEI endemic models with periodicity and separatrices. Math Biosci 128: 157–184
Greenhalgh D (1990) Deterministic models for common childhood diseases. Int J Syst Sci 21: 1–20
Kato T (1984) Perturbation theory for linear operators. Springer, Berlin
London WP, Yorke JA (1973) Recurrent outbreaks of measles, chickenpox and mumps. Am J Epidemiol 98: 453–468
Perko L (1996) Differential equations and dynamical systems, 2nd edn. Springer, New York
Thieme HR (1992) Epidemic and demographic interaction in the spread of potentially fatal diseases in growing populations. Math Biosci 111: 99–130
Thieme HR (1993) Persistence under relaxed point-dissipativity (with applications to an endemic model). SIAM J Math Anal 24: 407–435
Wiggins S (2003) Introduction to applied nonlinear dynamical systems and chaos, 2nd edn. Springer, New York
Wu LI, Feng Z (2000) Homoclinic bifurcation in an SIQR model for childhood diseases. J Differ Equ 168: 150–167
Zhou J, Hethcote HW (1994) Population size dependent incidence in models for diseases without immunity. J Math Biol 32: 809–834
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Gerberry, D.J., Milner, F.A. An SEIQR model for childhood diseases. J. Math. Biol. 59, 535–561 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00285-008-0239-2
Received:
Revised:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00285-008-0239-2